


In Another Life

by Calliopinot



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Skwisgaar and Toki can both read but I swear it's still Metalocalypse, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Arson, Emotional Porn, Fire, M/M, Scars, Toki abuse :(, implied period homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:37:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliopinot/pseuds/Calliopinot
Summary: "Wherever you go, and whatever you do, I will always love you. Never forget who you are."





	1. AB Negative

**Author's Note:**

> One-stop shop for all my Alternate Universe Skwistoks I said I was never gonna write. Yeah, the summary is a bastardized Simpsons quote, but there's nothing you can do about it, is there?

He was drunk and lonely. A condition so common of late they considered it essentially part of his character. Oh, that’s Toki, he loves cats. Hey here’s my buddy Toki, he’s a diabetic. There’s Toki, he’s drunk and lonely.

And he was, drunk and lonely, wandering the halls of Mordhaus at zero dark thirty, in search of someone or anyone or no one, maybe an ear to share the weight of his sorrows, perhaps a tongue to share the burden of this fifth of Stoli Gold.

He never found one, usually. They knew his route, his friends. They steered clear, his good friends. 

Tonight, though, he found someone. Two someones, by the look of it, by the sound of it. Two dark figures, huddled together in some forgotten corner of an ill-trafficked hall, muffled moans and stifled whimpers issuing from deep within the mass of souls. 

Normal human interaction would dictate that he leave them to their intimate business. But he was drunk, and lonely, and not especially normal, besides.

The noises, and the solitude, drew him closer, near enough to spy a shock of iridescent blond hair spilling from behind the ear of the aggressor. A decidedly male grunt, almost pained, sounding from the other figure stopped him cold. 

Sober Toki would lack the grace to make a delicate exit from this incriminating scene. Drunk Toki hadn’t much more tact, on the whole. But what he was witnessing was so far beyond anything he could have reasonably anticipated seeing tonight, wildly outside the bounds of any reality he knew, and it was all he could do to melt away into the shadows, unseen and unheard, as quickly as his wobbly legs could take him.

 

* * *

 

Toki was always a little weird. Going back to homeless kid in a dumb pointy cap days, Toki was always a little weird. 

Skwisgaar didn’t like paying too much attention to him. Paying attention would lead to noticing things, little things, like how he tucked the hair behind his ear on the side where it parted, but only when he was nervous, which was often. 

And noticing things would lead to caring. Caring about the little things, like how he’d been tucking his hair a lot lately, when Skwisgaar was around. And caring was, as they say, not metal. 

But weird little Toki was acting weirder than usual, and Skwisgaar noticed, because Skwisgaar was paying attention, and he cared about the kid, and it made him kind of queasy.

When Toki finally confronted Skwisgaar, his demeanor mirrored that same nausea. 

He entered Skwisgaar’s room, unbidden, and closed the door behind him. And stood there, swaying slightly, looking peaked and by Skwisgaar’s estimation, probably tipsy, again. 

“What’s you wants, littles Toki?” He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. He cared, after all. 

Toki’s hands closed into tight balls against his thighs. He widened his stance, as if to steady himself, as if to prepare himself for something. 

A jolt of adrenaline propelled Skwisgaar to his feet. 

“Ah, looks, Tokis, ifs you comes here fors fightings, I, uhh, I gots de flus.” He feigned a pathetic cough to sell his point. “We takes de rains check, eh?”

His guest simply shook his downturned head. 

“Uhh…noes. I nots come here for dat.” He wiped sweaty palms on the back of his pants. “I, uh. What’s you does de other night… wif dat guy… You does wit’ Toki?" 

Skwisgaar couldn’t see the grimace that request produced. Toki  _was_ steeling himself for something. Rejection, ridicule. He was not prepared for the full minute of silence, as the Swede processed this inquiry. 

He looked up, at last. Skwisgaar nearly jumped out of his skin. 

"I’s curious, is all! Toki didn’t know you did… stuff… wif guys… and I wants… to sees if… maybe..” The knot in his throat impeded the rest of his words. 

The peal of laughter from the other man made speech all but impossible. 

“Okay. You don’t gots to laugh ats me.” He bit back tears as he turned to leave. The situation was embarrassing enough. “Don'ts tell de ot'er guys, okay? Please?”

“Toki! Wait.” Skwisgaar grabbed him by the elbows before he knew what he was doing. Toki was shocked by the fear he saw staring back at him. Skwisgaar had always regarded him with a detached superiority, a combination of haughty aloofness and outright scorn. The man who stood before him now was letting him in, and he didn’t know whether to take the plunge. 

“What’s you sees wasn’t… I amments…”

Tears gone, Toki oscillated quickly to frustration. 

“I knows what I sees! You was wif a guy!”

“Ja… But it was… Because I’s…" 

Skwisgaar took a deep breath. Cocked his head at Toki.

"How old does you t'inks I am?”

Toki fought the urge to roll his eyes at the vanity he mistook for vulnerability. “Okay Skwisgaar, you don'ts looks a day over 27–”

“Toki!” His eyes were shining. “I’m 977 years old." 

The Norwegian blinked at him. Tried to retrace in his mind how the fuck this conversation had gone so bizarrely off the rails. 

"Den how comes you’s English amn'ts betters?”

Skwisgaar squeezed his arms until they hurt, shook him, once.  _Believe me._  

“You wants fors me to shows you? You wants me does what’s I does wiv dat Klokskateers to yous?”

Toki wasn’t sure anymore, but curiosity hadn’t killed any cats he knew. He nodded, slowly,  _yes_. 

Skwisgaar was on him in an instant. Sharp pressure at his throat took his breath away, but twin pinpricks piercing the skin over his jugular sent him into a panic. 

“Skwis…?”

The pain stopped just as soon it started, razor blades at his neck replaced by soft lips and hot tongue. And then he was released back into the cool air of the room, and it was as though nothing had happened. 

Except Skwisgaar Skwigelf towered over him, blond hair aglow just like he saw it that night, eyes swamped by a black abyss and mouth covered in blood. 

His blood. 

_His_  favorite.


	2. Off Main Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from little-murmaider
> 
> AU: Pre-internet times. Skwisgaar is a guitarist in a rock and roll band from the wrong side of the tracks. Toki's family owns the town, and doesn't want him associating with THOSE KINDS of people. Can they make it work?! (I've been reading Bruce Springsteen's memoir and thinking a lot about rowdy rock and roll boys lol.)

The boy would sneak out late at night, when he was sure his family was asleep, when the only servants roaming the grounds were the ones too friendly or too fearful to rat him out. They knew where he was going; there was no need to be concerned for his safety, although Emma the old nursemaid prayed for his soul.

Down the bottom of the hill from the back side of the manor, past the garage with its twin Studebakers and the stately Bel Air he’d always considered but never actually borrowed for these adventures – it would draw too much attention in a town that could barely afford the clunky old Hudsons that cluttered its streets. Besides, this journey was best executed on foot. 

He loved the smell of the magnolias in bloom, shading, even in the darkness, the cobblestone lane that joined up to the main road, just past the manor gates. “Wartooth Estate.” The gilded lettering clashed with the wrought iron, he thought, and it always turned his stomach just a little bit. Everyone knew who lived here. His father, Aslaug, the bank owner, who owned the mortgages of just about every home in Hetfield Falls. His mother, Anya, nee Skyhunter, heiress and socialite, who did nothing more than host money-counting parties for her fellow heiresses and socialites. 

And him. Toki. The offspring. Born only to inherit his father’s name and status while other, better men ran his businesses. He had destroyed his mother’s womb in birth, and for that she hated him. She could never have the daughter she wanted, the little doll to dress up and parade around for all her vapid friends to coo over. 

The town bloomed as he made his way along the road. The post office, then two blocks of nothing. Then the police station, fire station, primary school, then park space. It got lovelier and brighter and more alive the farther down Main Street he walked. All the businesses were closed, of course. He wasn’t stopping here. His destination was off Main Street, way off, over where the streetlights blew out and didn’t get replaced, where the old cars bounced in and out of potholes and left their hubcaps rusting in the storm drain. 

Toki had to check the grin that had started to ache his cheeks. It wouldn’t do for him to walk into a nightclub looking like the naïve cherub-faced cousin of Richie Rich. As it was, he feared the blue jeans he wore were too crisp, the leather jacket too expensive, the veneer of belonging too thin for anyone to believe he was a rebellious teenager out for an evening of revolution and rock & roll.

If only they knew it was he who had the most to revolt against. 

He, and the blond guitarist who was the evening’s real destination.  

A runaway like him, but not quite. He’d only caught his name once, something funky, like his accent, from Over There. He wore his hair long, like a lady. Toki had thought it hilarious, the first time he saw it, but it was a custom in his homeland. Not to be made fun of. He’d hopped a steamship out of Stockholm with nothing but his guitar and the proverbial bag of dreams, wound up here by luck and happenstance, playing this devil’s music in underground clubs and running from the vice squad at every turn.

Toki had learned these things over the last few months, bits and pieces gleaned in stolen moments between sets. Maybe it was the long, ladylike hair that did it. Maybe it was the sound of the guitar, grungy and raw, that he felt in his gut and his bones. 

Maybe it was the way the guitarist looked at him, like he knew exactly what he was thinking.

That first night, they kissed each other in the bathroom. It was the only place two men could be in a confined space without raising suspicion. Short, experimental kisses, rife with nervous glances toward a door they couldn’t lock. It only lasted a minute, enough time for Toki to fall head over heels and not nearly long enough for him to be satisfied. 

He played with a couple of bands, all with obscene names. Financially Raped. Fuckface Academy. And the gig schedule was erratic at best. The students at Toki’s prep school weren’t exactly rebels without a cause, but the older kids who also wanted a place to make out and drink alcohol kept enough of an ear to the ground for Toki to know when the long-haired blond would be in town.

If Toki’s parents knew what he was doing… He had to push those thoughts far from his mind as he stepped into the club. This one took up the basement of an old wooden church. Toki wondered, obliquely, if God watched what went on in His house after hours. 

A ten-dollar bill was more than enough to ensure passage beyond the doorman. This crowd was a bit older, a bit rougher than he was used to. He swallowed his nerves; nobody had recognized him thus far, or if they had, they didn’t care enough to kidnap or take out their frustrations with his father on him.  

The blond guitarist found Toki first. They smiled at each other. Shook hands. Tried not to glance around. 

“Come, I gets you a glass of beer.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Let’s get away from here.” Toki breathed the suggestion into blond hair as the man ravaged his neck. 

His paramour’s eyes flicked up to his, briefly, before their mouths met once more. “You don'ts evens know my name." 

Toki laughed. "I know it. I just don’t remember it.”

It was the foreigner’s turn to laugh. He pulled back but kept their hips locked together. Fully clothed, unmoving, it was all they could do. 

“It’s ams Skwisgaar.”

Toki squinted. “Ehh, I’d definitely remember a name that weird.”

Skwisgaar’s laugh deepened. He pressed his smile to Toki’s for a moment, then slid his hands up to hold the boy’s face. The look on his was alarming to the teen, a mix of pain and anger. 

“I’m sorry.”

Skwisgaar sighed. “Ams nots dat.” He glanced at the wall clock. Three minutes ‘til eleven. Almost showtime. “We can'ts does dis no mores.”

His heart was breaking as much as Toki’s. That much was evident, and the only thing that kept Toki from shouting or flailing or crying like the spoiled brat he in truth was. 

“Why? Why not?”

The foreigner laughed, again, only this time it carried no heady mirth. “Does you know why I gots kicks out of my house?" 

Toki stared. He figured the guy had just flipped his folks the bird on his way out the door like he’d fantasized about doing so many times.

"It ams for dis.” Skwisgaar kissed him again, sadly. “Dis. We can'ts does dis. Nowheres. Dere ams no 'away.’" 

_"Hey Eurotrash! We got a show to do!"_

Skwisgaar withdrew completely, kept his head down as he shouldered his Gibson Les Paul. Toki was at a loss. He knew what they were doing was illegal, but who cared about that? His family was above the law. 

"My family has money. A lot of money. I could get my father’s car and we could go somewhere where there aren’t a lot of people, a small town—" 

"And whats does you t'ink dis ams? Huh?” The anger in his face had risen to his voice. Skwisgaar had been down this road before, this road off Main Street, where the burned out streetlamps still illuminated your deadliest sins. 

“You should go. De show ams goings to be shit." 

Toki watched him leave. He didn’t stay for the show. When he got home, he made enough noise to wake the whole house. And his father took the belt to him, for sneaking out, for the attire, for the hickey on his neck. 

And he cried, but not from the work of his father. That was a cover he was glad for. A pain to mask the one deep within, that he would never salve. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the town is literally just Bedford Falls but (slightly) metal.


	3. Oh My God They Were Roommates.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “You’re my roommate who’s super cute and it’s the middle of the night and you’re cramming for your exams in your flannel pajamas and disheveled hair and it’s becoming increasingly hard for me not to kiss you”

The Scandinavian exchange students were an odd pair. One lanky, blond, more likely to be found serenading pretty young coeds on the quad with a beat-up old acoustic guitar than in an actual classroom; the other small, quiet, nervous, awkward, brown in every way, his polar opposite and his constant shadow.

Nobody really cared which place either of them were from–“The blond’s from Finland.” “No, Sweden! They’re blond in Sweden!” “Yeah well they’re blond in Denmark too! Probably!” Nobody guessed about the other kid’s origin. Scandinavia sufficed for both.

The blond one, who was indeed from Sweden, was called Skwisgaar. The American girls couldn’t pronounce that, or chose not to, so he became “Skwis” in short order. It rhymed with “kiss,” which is what they wanted from him, after all. The other one was Toki, and he was from Norway, the country, it’s a country, next to Sweden, Toki, a Norwegian from Norway. The American girls couldn’t remember that, or chose not to.

The American girls, and the boys too, thought Toki was the oddest part of the odd pair, when they thought of him. Always carrying books, carrying them in his arms, five classes worth of books and notes he held in front of himself like a cord of firewood and walked from building to building. The school resource counselor, at one point, gifted a backpack to the child–like she had the used uniform and the two changes of street clothes he landed stateside without–but he refused to use it.

Skwisgaar knew why. He learned that first night last fall, that very first night sharing a room with this boy, when he saw the deep red gashes that were still healing, layered over ancient scar tissue, which Toki hadn’t even thought to conceal. The shame was his to bear; the marks were evidence of his transgressions, left by God through the hand of his father. It was only after seeing Skwisgaar’s reaction–swears and shouting and angry tears that leaked for hours, not condemnation or pious grandstanding–that he began to rethink their purpose.

In the morning, that very next morning, Skwisgaar walked with Toki to class. It wasn’t one he was enrolled in. He walked him to the class after, and the class after, and the class after, every one, always. In his mind, deflecting attention from the weird kid with the bad haircut and handmedown uni was more important than demerits for tardiness. In his heart, protecting him from anyone who would leave more marks was more important than anything.

  
The lanky blond from Sweden thought about all of this, or as much of it as his flighty 17-year-old brain cared to, as he laid on the floor, feet on his bed, staring upside down at his roommate.

“What’s yous doing now?”

Toki sat cross-legged in the center of a ring of papers and textbooks. Every 10 minutes–exactly, he watched the clock, which at the moment read 2:50am–he would spin a few degrees to his right, pick up a new set of materials, and bury himself. The latest rotation brought his face back into Skwisgaar’s view. The Swede had to stifle a smile of relief. The past 50 minutes felt strangely lonely.

“Uhm…rights now I’s tryings to gets you hair offs my biology notes.”

Both of their hair was in blatant violation of the prep school’s strict dress code, but the deans didn’t know enough about Scandinavian tradition to object to a cultural protest. (Which, coincidentally, is how Skwisgaar had managed to skip the vast majority of his classes in the current semester. What administrator was going to argue with the sacred weeklong observance of Döds Metall?) Skwisgaar’s had grown long, and with the length came waves, and with the waves came thickness, and all of it was at present cascading over and interrupting Toki’s studying.

“Aww, I tinks you should studies mine hairs, littles Toki. Maybes gets somes tips fors you greaseballs, huehuehuegh.” He scooted closer, sweeping a hand under his neck and fanning his full golden mane across a whole semester of bio.

“We can'ts all skips de entires year and waltz insto de finals and gets perfect score, Skwisgaar.”

Toki sighed as he brushed the hair aside. Wow. It was pretty soft, huh. Pretty pretty, too.

Skwisgaar noticed the lingering fingers. Inched a little bit closer. Hoped Toki couldn’t tell.

“I tinks you grows insto dat pees jays. Dey looks betters on yous.”

“Thanks. And, thanks.”

The flannel pajama set had been a gift, like all of Toki’s clothes and accessories and school supplies. Skwisgaar ordered it in a care package from home. He didn’t want to say they weren’t for him.

“I tells you don'ts gots to t'anks me. Ams my whore moms monies anyways.” Dammit. Why’d he bring her up. He clenched his eyes shut, willing her very existence out of the room.

When he opened them, Toki was hovering over him, a curious look on his face.

“It ams 2:54. You wastes four minutes of my biology study.”

Skwisgaar smiled.

“Wants to wastes de rest?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Döds Metall" is "Death Metal" in Swedish. I, uh, should try harder?


	4. Skills of an Artist, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “We’re both strangers sitting in the same booth at an eatery because all the other booths are full and you’re drawing smiley faces on your plate with ketchup and wow your concentrated frown is cute” tbh that's smth Toki would actually do

He had a few hours to kill before his next audition. With no knowledge of the city, or its haunts, or its language, more entertaining ways to pass that time unfortunately passed him by. It was hot out, anyway, and nearing the hour where the skies opened and belched out their daily deluge. Hot and wet was only fun in certain, very specific circumstances.

There was a diner near to his next appointment. A catch-all kind of place that served watered-down American coffee and runny eggs in the morning and dry meatloaf at night and everything deep-fried all day. It was quiet, earlier. He’d shelled out a buck or two, more for the right to idle in one of the air-conditioned booths than for the shitty brown sludge it bought. Now, though, it was packed. Boring men in boring suits stuffed their boring faces with burgers and fries while they jabbered away about mortgage refinancing or market scalability or some other corporate bullshit Skwisgaar Skwigelf would never need to understand, because he was special.

His favorite booth was occupied, too, but not by a stuff-shirt capitalist. A scruffy kid in an odd, vaguely European cap, who stuck out and faded into the noise almost as much as he did. Skwisgaar wasn’t keen on keeping this kind of company, but the seat across from him was empty, and the thunderstorm had begun, and he had a few hours to kill…

“Ehm…Cans I sits here?”

The boy looked up, momentarily perturbed, and more than a little confused.

“Uh. Ja.”

Skwisgaar returned his curious expression. That accent was too familiar to be heard here.

“…ja. T'anks.”

The kid watched him sit, realised he was staring, and quickly turned back to his business.

Small talk was not Skwisgaar’s forte. He had no intention of even acknowledging the stranger across from him again once he’d been granted access to his, admittedly public, space. But the kid held his attention, not exclusively because of the unexpected accent or weird attire. He’d finished his meal but retained two white plates, on which he was currently creating a work of art.

Ketchup art, to be precise.

What began as a goopy red smiley face grew long hair, kitty whiskers, angel wings, and a devil’s tail. A leftover french fry dragged through the condiment to create a shadowing effect. He munched on it in thought as he planned the next line, then stuck his tongue out in concentration. Making the leap between plates required the utmost focus.

Skwisgaar had no idea what to make of the display. He was half revolted, half amused, and completely invested. He had a sudden desire to engage this person, learn everything about him, grow old with him–or at least figure out what the fuck he was doing.

“Hey. Can I gets de ketchup?”

The kid’s eyes flicked up. The same perturbed, confused look in them from earlier. This interloper hadn’t ordered anything.

“Ja. Ja, gives me a second.”

Skwisgaar waited a second. The artist seemed utterly unwilling to part with his medium. So Skwisgaar tried a different approach.

The sound of a fake Polaroid snapping got the kid’s attention.

“What was dat? What’s you does?!”

“I takes a picture.”

“Why? I didn'ts says you could!”

Skwisgaar shrugged at him, smirking at the photo on his phone.

“It ams art. Art ams fors everyone. Besides, looks like dis ams de only way I ams goings to enjoy de ketchup today so…”

“Wha…bu…Deletes dat! I looks like crap!” The kid blushed. He didn’t mean to betray his vanity.

“No you don’t. You looks cute.” A similar flush on the other side of the table.

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, avoiding eye contact.

Finally, Skwisgaar cleared his throat.

“Ehm, okey, I tells you what. You wants de photo, I sends it to you. But I needs your numbers for dat.”

He hoped to God that came out as smoothly as he intended. His face was on fire.

“Uhh…” The kid was back to staring. “I don'ts gots a data plan. But, um…I does gots a printer…ats…my place.”

Skwisgaar grinned. He did have a few hours to kill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the title is a Strong Bad reference. Wow. I really really should try harder.


	5. Skills of an Artist, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ketchup Artist has invited a stranger home.

Toki stumbled out of the booth. His hand wound up smack in the middle of his ketchup masterpiece in attempt to gain balance. He was blowing it. But then, he wasn’t exactly practiced at inviting beautiful blond strangers to his apartment in the middle of the afternoon.

Said stranger offered him a couple of napkins, with that same smirk on his face from a moment ago. So pretty, the way half his mouth curved and pinched his cheek, the way his upper row of teeth bit into his lower lip in effort not to show. Toki only noticed he was staring again when the guy looked away.

He grabbed an instrument case off the bench beside him. How hadn’t Toki seen that when he sat down? Must’ve been too distracted by the hair and the roguish nature and the accent that felt like home…

“Shalls we?”

Oh yeah.

“Ahh… ja. Ja, let’s go.”

* * *

Skwisgaar hesitated only slightly, when he remembered the maelstrom outside. An offer of quieter surroundings in only the company of this strange and intriguing and admittedly cute young man had a certain appeal. Being hot and wet was fun in certain, very specific circumstances.

He followed the kid out of the crowded diner, hoping they didn’t have far to walk. The rainfall was surprisingly pleasant, offering a bit of relief from the stagnant heat that preceded it, but the periodic flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder made his blood run cold.

“Yous from around here?” The kid shouted over the pitter patter.

Skwisgaar looked at him sidelong. “Uhh… noes, I’s not. Ams guessings you’s not, eit'er?”

* * *

Toki didn’t know why he asked such a stupid question. But the way this guy flinched at every roll of thunder made him stick out like a sore thumb. It’s south Florida, for fuck’s sake.

“Um, I ams now.” They turned a corner and started down a more residential street, lined with trees that provided a bit of cover from the rain. He could speak without raising his voice. “Ams from Norways. You’s from…” He peeked at him through his sheath of dripping brown hair. “…Denmark?”

* * *

Skwisgaar huffed. 

“Fucks de Dutch. Ams from Sweden, t'anks.”

* * *

Shit, he didn’t mean to offend.

“Sorries! I aint’s gets out much.” He hoped that would suffice.

They endured the rest of the walk in silence. Fortunately, they hadn’t much farther to go. Toki kept peeking through his sheath of dripping brown hair even so, making sure his guest was still in step.

He paused at the end of the block. It hadn’t occurred to him until that very moment that he should probably be ashamed of his lifestyle. Things had gotten better since he washed up here a couple years ago. But the dilapidated studio apartment with the barred windows, sandwiched between a bodega and a different bodega, wasn’t exactly the lap of luxury.

Whatever. They’d come this far.

* * *

“Makes yousself at home?”

Skwisgaar heard the uncertainty in the kid’s voice as he dropped his guitar across the threshold, but he wasn’t paying attention to the words. Every surface in this tiny room not occupied by a rudimentary appliance was covered in art. Doodles of human figures ripped out of sketchbooks; abstract watercolors pinned up on wrinkly paper; dark, moody works done in charcoal and gouache that reminded him of Scandinavian winters.

It was as though he walked into an exclusive museum and a very private corner of this boy’s soul at the same time.

The kid noticed him staring. It was impossible not to.

“Oh. Oh ja. I’s kinds of an artist?”

Skwisgaar tore his eyes away from the drawings and down to the work of art that stood before him. The kid had completely unselfconsciously stripped off his shirt and hat, ringing them both out over the apartment’s only sink. He draped them on the back of the apartment’s only chair and turned to his guest, revealing yet another surprise in the form of an unfairly toned torso.

“What’s your name?”

* * *

Toki felt exposed, and not because of his half nudity. Not only had he invited an absolutely gorgeous absolute stranger into his home, but they hadn’t even exchanged basic pleasantries?

“Uh… Toki. Toki Wartooth. What’s yours?”

The blond huffed again. As though he expected Toki to know it already.

“It ams Skwisgaar Skwigelf.”

Toki didn’t know what else to do, so he held out his hand.

* * *

Skwisgaar laughed, his full, hearty laugh. He accepted the hand that Toki Wartooth offered him, but he didn’t exactly forge through the rain and lightning for a handshake. In one swift motion he pulled the kid in, threading his free hand into his wet mop of hair and craning his head back.

Toki was absolute putty in his arms. His eyelids fluttered at the manhandling, at the long fingers that caressed his skull. His lips parted expectantly. But there was no kiss. Skwisgaar’s lips ghosted past his, brushing along his jaw and up to his ear.

“So, you gots dat printers or whats?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda flips between their POVs. I hope that's clear.


	6. Skills of an Artist, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ketchup Artist and the Blond Stranger find common ground.

The kid, whose name was Toki Wartooth, now that they had been formally introduced, had a beautifully shrill laugh. Skwisgaar hadn't heard it until now. It put him at ease, a condition he only just realised was novel.

Something about following a complete stranger--a weirdo who plays with ketchup, no less--to his house, presumably for a hookup, in the middle of the goddamn afternoon, raised his hackles. Not that such a venture was unusual, per se, but sweet old ladies were much more likely to stuff him full of matzoh balls and bundt cake than slit his throat and draw pictures with the blood--which odds were heavy on a random scrubby kid who made ketchup art to do.

Cold lips--not a knife, thank the gods--pressed to his throat.

"I gots de printer," Toki murmured against his skin, taking liberties to slip Skwisgaar's damp jacket off his shoulders and massage the bare skin he found there. "Ams on de ot'er side of de bed, 'do."

Skwisgaar snorted.

"Yous full'a dems lines, huh?"

Toki pulled back, furrowed an eyebrow at him. The look on his face one of pure confusion, complete and utter innocence-- _Total bullshit_ , Skwisgaar thought--as he pointed to the computer station on the far side of the folded up futon that doubled as a bed.

Skwisgaar was the one staring now. This room contained multitudes, despite its size. The art was obvious, the first thing to hit him over the head when he stepped inside. Beyond the rickety futon and the presumably purloined folding chair, there was no furniture. The printer and laptop sat on the floor amid a tangle of wires, leading to speakers and expensive-looking cameras and all sorts of other peripherals. Beside all this, a door, which Skwisgaar assumed contained a water closet, and in the corner, a treasure.

"Where's you gets dat?" It was a rude question, he knew it. But Skwisgaar couldn't help himself. He stepped out of the embrace, drawn to the battered old Gibson Flying V and pawn shop amplifier.

Apart from some rough patches on the body, and a wingnut serving as a makeshift knob, the axe seemed in remarkably good shape. The strings were new, the pickups replaced, the fretboard sanded and varnished and inlaid with fresh frets that belied the instrument's age.

"Does you play it?" It very well could be an art installment, for all he knew.

"'Course I plays it. Hows you t'inks I makes moneys?"

Skwisgaar chose not to answer that rhetorical. Still, he was skeptical.

"You makes money plays guitar?" Something he'd been trying to do for years. Something he was in Florida to do, schlepping his own Gibson from audition to audition in hopes of landing a paying gig.

Toki was suddenly bashful. "Wells... I's kinds of an artist."

"Ja. Yous tells to me dis."

His blush ran down to his collarbones and picked back up on his tummy. It was absolutely adorable.

"Ah! Ja. Wells. I makes big t'ings and littles t'ings. Fors de big t'ings I has, um, patrons."

Skwisgaar could practically see the air quotes around that last word. Decided, again, to leave it alone.

"Littles t'ings I sells on de street, and I plays my guitar, and I makes a lots'a cash."

Toki was beaming up at Skwisgaar now, immensely proud of himself.

"De cash pay for art school," he added, almost apologetically, remembering his meager surroundings.

Skwisgaar didn't know if he should be impressed or jealous. At--what, 19?--Skwisgaar was still loafing about his mother's house, playing gorgeous melodies to no one in his childhood bedroom, making promises to the air about starting a band, getting a contract, going to a fancy music school in America. He didn't even have a job.

Then the boy moved past him, and he knew it wasn't jealousy.

The scars rippled across his back, gouged deep and angry from shoulder to kidney, shined as they pulled taut when he hunched over his laptop.

Toki was saying something. Skwisgaar couldn't hear him. When Toki turned around he was staring again, not at the marks on his body but at the ones that covered his walls, red splotches and jagged lines recurring themes in painting after painting. Skwisgaar hadn't seen them before. Now they were leaping out at him, screaming at him, and the boy who wore the real ones seemed not to even notice. Suddenly, he understood the ketchup.

"Skissgar?"

His phone was out again. He wanted to capture everything, in case he never saw it again, hoping fervidly that he would.

"You likes dems?"

The voice was closer. Filled with trepidation. Desperate for approval.

Skwisgaar turned. That bright, expressive face tilted up to him, hands folded as if in prayer.

The phone tumbled to the floor, irrelevant now, as he grasped the boy's jaw and smashed their mouths together. He kissed with an intensity he wouldn't understand until much later, fingers at the back of his skull, willing him closer than physics would allow.

A noise escaped Toki's throat, somewhere between a whimper and a whinny. In effort to relieve the pressure he opened his mouth, only to be rewarded with an invading tongue. It was aggressive and possessive and reassuring all at once, and he met it with equal fervor.

In seconds each man was begging the other for the same thing--his body, to be sure, but his companionship, his intimacy more. They would figure out the whys through conversation and song, exploring the multitudes within one another in the eternity that lay before them. When body temperatures weren't peaked, when their kisses weren't flavored with the salty tang of sweat.

When being hot and wet wasn't so much fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends the curious tale of the boy who doodled in ketchup and the man who followed him home.


	7. The Temperature At Which Book Paper Catches Fire And Burns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar is a librarian and Toki loves books. They find each other. But will they find peace?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired entirely by a brief scene in one of my favorite fics by @little-murmaider, [Enough Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14043096).

 It had been a few days since he'd seen the scruffy kid.

His name was Toki. This he learned despite all efforts to resist familiarity, opting on most occasions to call him dude or kid or man. Toki came around at least three times a week, always to read the same book, sometimes one or two others if he had the time. He seemed to have nothing but time.

But his habit was curious. He would only descend the stairs to the library archives if the blond man named Skwisgaar Skwigelf was leading him. Any other library technician and he'd politely decline, spend time in periodicals or young adult. Toki came to know his schedule: Monday thru Thursday from open to close and alternating weekend days.

Toki was bummed on the weeks Skwisgaar worked Sundays. Toki couldn't venture out on Sundays.

Despite all efforts to resist familiarity, Skwisgaar had to admit he looked forward to Toki's visits. He never knew when he'd show up; it was always with secret disappointment that he'd close up shop without catching sight of that choppy brown mop and baby face, and with a hidden smile that he'd lead the boy down into the depths.

 

Two days passing without Toki was unusual, but not unheard of. Three was unsettling. An entire week was cause for alarm.

 

Skwisgaar had gotten a pleasant surprise that week. It was Sunday, right around lunchtime, and in popped that brown mop and baby face. A pleasant surprise too unexpected for Skwisgaar to exercise control over the corners of his mouth, or the flush that radiated from his cheeks after.

"I t'oughts you was busy on Sundays." By way of greeting.

"Yeah, well..." Toki looked away, rubbed his neck. Glaring red flags if Skwisgaar were looking for any. "I was t'inkin, maybe you wants to goes for a cups of coffee? You know. Sos I can thanks you. For, uh, bein' so nice to me."

Skwisgaar gawked for a moment at the slight wince on the young man's face, deep in thought about something else.

"You don'ts owes me nothin. Ams my pleasure." And his job, but he chose in this moment to leave that point out.

Toki made eye contact, finally. More cause for concern dancing in them, if Skwisgaar were wont to notice.

"But, ahh, looks. I would loves to joins you for coffee." He smiled what he hoped was a genuine smile. "How's abouts Friday? Ams my day off."

Toki started. He meant today, right now, let's go somewhere nice, somewhere else, please. But for as thick as his glasses were, Skwisgaar Skwigelf couldn't read the signs.

"Oh. Ja. Okei." He smiled what he knew was not a genuine smile. "Okei! I sees ya later den!"

Toki turned on his heel, disappeared out the front door before Skwisgaar could utter another sound.

 

It was Friday. They had a coffee date in theory but hadn't seen each other all week, hadn't discussed where to meet and when. Skwisgaar was mildly concerned Toki might have thought he'd blown him off in that brief encounter. But that was absurd! He'd offered to him his entire day off! Skwisgaar's mild concerns masked the real ones.

He pondered these things as he circled the streets. Toki mentioned offhand that he lived "up by the old church, you know." Waved it off and moved the conversation along. The city was founded in 1539. The city was full of old churches.

Skwisgaar drove by all of them – looking for what, he didn't know. The sky darkened. He pulled out a map, looked for overpasses, jerked the wheel around in search of them. Jerked the wheel around when he saw him.

The rain had only just begun. Skwisgaar left his car idling on the curb. It didn't matter.

From the look and smell of him, Toki likely hadn't been anywhere near a warm bed or hot shower since the last time they saw each other.

"I saves dem." He clutched a big, lumpy rucksack to his chest. Skwisgaar wasn't about to pry. Just helped the kid into the passenger seat of his modest old coupe.

"I takes you home, ok Toki? Jus tells me where to go-"

" _NEI! Nei_ , can'ts go home. _Neineinei_."

Skwisgaar peered at him out of the corner of his eye. He looked manic, terrified. Was he using? In that moment, Skwisgaar realised Toki Wartooth was really a stranger to him.

"Okej, dats okej. I takes you someplace warm. Don'ts worry."

Skwisgaar racked his brain. The kid was 19, but still too much of a boy for the men's shelter. In his current condition, public facilities were out. Then his body slumped forward, and Skwisgaar had only one choice.

"Holy shits..."

The back of Toki's shirt was soaked through with blood, some dried, mostly fresh.

Angry horns sounded as tires skidded through the wet intersection, made a sudden and illegal U-turn. Toki's limp body fell into his, and it was with a strange pang of shame and pity that he pushed it away.

He fished his phone out of the dash cubby, swiped for a number between near-misses.

"Hey! Can you meets me at my place in 10 minutes? Brings you kit."

He wanted to tell the kid it would be alright, he was getting help, just hang on and everything will be fine. But he had no idea how true any of that was.

 

* * *

 

The blood soaked through the sleeve of his trench coat. He didn't have far to carry the load, just up the driveway, through the side door to the kitchen where she would have everything ready. There must have been a lot of it.

"What's his name?"

Skwisgaar sat the boy on his kitchen table, laid out with plastic sheeting. Held his head to keep him from collapsing in any direction, which sent the vomit that spewed from his mouth in only one.

"Ahh... Toki."

"Keep it together Skwigelf, I need you on this one." She shot him a look. He understood what it meant.

"Toki? Toki can you hear me? My name is Abigail. I'm a doctor and I'm going to take care of you, ok?"

If he could hear her, he gave no indication. Abigail deftly cut the shirt off Toki's back. Shot Skwisgaar another look. He wished he didn't understand what it meant.

 

"I got the bleeding to stop. He's asleep now."

Abigail had sent her nurse away when she deemed the situation under control. Better to get him out of the arena of blood and bodily fluids before she had two patients on her hands. Instead, Skwisgaar busied himself with setting up overnight accommodations for his new guest.

She sat down on the couch beside him, gratefully accepted the shot of vodka he offered.

"I was sewing through scar tissue, Skwisgaar. You wanna tell me what the fuck happened to him?"

Skwisgaar sighed, shook his head. "I don'ts know."

"Well, how do you know him?"

"I don'ts know him!" It was true, but not accurate. He took a slow sip of liquor, breathed out heavily. "He comes insto de librurr. Always wants to reads de same book. For couple months, de same book."

Abigail blinked at him, expecting more.

"I don'ts know whats else to tells you. Ams a weird kid." He paused. "A good kids."

 

Toki awoke in twilight, surprised to find himself in a bed, warm and comfortable. Not surprised to find himself in searing pain.

"Shhh. You's okay."

A voice in the dark usually meant more of it. But through the haze he could make out a pair of tired blue eyes behind round tortoiseshell glasses.

"Wha... happens?"

Skwisgaar leaned forward into the thin shaft of moonlight that had broken through the storm clouds. He held up a glass of water and a handful of pills.

"I suppose I shoulds asks you de same question."

Toki accepted the medicine, skeptical despite his savior's largesse to this point. Skwisgaar smiled as reassuringly as he could.

"Ams a antibiotic, and some painkillers. And, uh, somet'ing for nausea..." His wrinkled nose jogged Toki's memory.

"Ah. Ja... Sorries."

Toki sat up with difficulty. The bandages already needed changing. Skwisgaar's stomach did a backflip at that, but he swallowed his distaste and rolled up his sleeves.

"Which you wants to tells me about first? Dese?"

Toki winced as he peeled off the first layer of gauze.

"Or dose."

Toki sighed as he followed the long line of Skwisgaar's index finger to the floor, where his rucksack sat open. Dozens and dozens of stripped books lay jumbled inside. Much as he wanted to keep his secrets, this man had probably saved his life. He owed him an explanation.

"Ams related."

Skwisgaar continued his work in silence, waiting for the kid to elaborate at his own pace.

"My father... he's _the_ Father."

Skwisgaar shook his head. Realized Toki couldn't see the gesture from his position. "What's you mean."

"Um. De old church, up on de hill. He ams de Father."

Skwisgaar’s eyes widened. He'd read news stories about that church. It had been years, decades even, but he remembered something about flagellation and blood sacrifice. Tales from ex-members that were never corroborated by investigators.

"I ams nots a good son." Toki closed his eyes, blinked back tears.

 

On Fridays, they burned books. Steinbeck. Thoreau. Homer. Bradbury. Accursed tomes filled with lies and blasphemy. Sacrilegious fairy tales that would poison the minds of the flock and lead it into the mouth of the wolf.

But Toki was curious. He was just a little boy when the conflagrations began. He'd sneak one, a paperback, small enough to tuck into a shirt or the waistband of his trousers. And then he'd sit in the dark, puzzle out the English words. A lot of them reminded him of his native Norwegian, but they were a far cry from the Latin he'd learned to read in the only book he was ever permitted to touch.

It was years before he discovered a place where books lived safe from harm. Where people could go and browse and read to their hearts' content, never fearing the creak of a door, the shadow of a Father over their shoulder.

"I wants to reads dis."

Toki held out the battered, worn copy of _Moby Dick_ to the lady behind the counter. She looked him over. He was 14, too young to kick out for being a smartass but old enough to know better.

The lady squinted at him. "Then read it."

Toki shook his head. "I can'ts. Don'ts know all de words."

Her expression softened as she took in the kid's beaten down appearance and foreign air. Unlikely he'd been enrolled in any ESL classes in school – if he went to school.

The lady librarian showed Toki to the tiny reference section in the tiny library. They didn't have any translation dictionaries beyond Spanish and French. But Toki could follow patterns. Between the Latin roots of those romance languages and the Germanic ones of his native Norwegian, he puzzled out the words behind Captain Ahab's obsessive quest and, eventually, the meaning.

A picture of World War I fighter planes started Toki on the journey that would ultimately be his ruin, and his salvation.

The book was too big to sneak into his room. He'd chance a whipping to go out to the pile as it grew all week and read it, bit by bit. The guise of building the pyre granted him sufficient leave to read the thing cover to cover. Then, he watched it burn.

 

"I never finds it again. Til I finds you." He smiled up at Skwisgaar. Skwisgaar swallowed hard and looked away.

"But what's about dese? Huh?" He pointed, again, at the rucksack full of mutilated books.

"Ja..."

 

That fire, that night, lit one inside Toki that would grow to an inferno.

He had to find books that were the right size and shape. It didn't matter what they were about. It never did. A little bit of paint thinner dripped down the inside spine liberated the pages from their cover. They'd hide inside the leather bindings of the Bibles they'd replaced until it was time for services on Sunday. Then the parishioners would find pew after pew empty of rhetoric – just like Toki always had – and realise they'd burned the word of their God just two days prior.

 

"I gots away wif it. But den…" Toki chucked. His eyes, dulled by the painkillers, were nonetheless gleaming with the joy of vengeance fulfilled.  "His God wouldn'ts lets him to kills me, but he could leave me for dead."

Skwisgaar stood now, holding his elbows, processing the story.

"Dis jus happens?"

Toki nodded. "Ja. Sundays."

Skwisgaar stood, holding his elbows, overcome with guilt and yet unwilling to let any of it show.

"Why did you go back home?"

He smiled up at Skwisgaar. Skwisgaar swallowed hard and looked away.

"Where else am I to go?"

 

* * *

 

The cloud cover magnified it. But even on a clear night, he could see the orange glow at the top of the distant hillside from his bedroom window.

 

* * *

 

Toki was resting comfortably.

Skwisgaar had taken his first sick day in a decade to tend to him on Saturday. The fever was hard to control, but after 20 hours of cold compresses and patience, it finally broke around midnight.

He'd barely gotten any sleep himself. But there was something he had to see with his own eyes.

 

The bibles had not yet been replaced. An attentive flock was better for this message, anyway.

"God hath delivered the devil from our very presence." Reverend Aslaug Wartooth thundered from the bully pulpit. The mournful stained glass windows shook with the bass of his voice.

And the congregation felt it too, gasped, murmured, clutched their chests in shock and fear.

"For twenty years, we battled the beast, and at last he has been exorcised from our home. But he _could_ be dwelling in yours."

More shock. More rumbles. On and on it went. Terror sown into the hearts and minds of the faithful who sought nothing more from this man than a guiding hand.

Skwisgaar excused himself before the collection plate made its rounds, but by the look of the haul, those bibles would be replaced by next week. Whatever was left would surely line the pockets of the pious priest's vestments.

Toki Wartooth was not the devil, this Skwisgaar knew for certain. Another Wartooth, perhaps.

 

That night, four men in black and corpse paint confirmed the temperature at which church walls catch fire and burn.

 

* * *

 

They didn't discuss what their arrangement would be after Toki healed. Once he was well enough not to be tended overnight, Skwisgaar quietly set him up in a room of his own, one he knew Toki would appreciate. One with walls covered floor to ceiling in rescues from the library's used book sales. Unwanted rejects. Toki's kin.

It wasn't safe for Toki to venture out. The church burning made national news, the first since a series of arsons of places of worship went unsolved nearly a decade ago. Skwisgaar knew for certain Toki was innocent of those, just as he was innocent of this. But the Reverend Wartooth and his flock were out for blood.

Toki didn't mind. Confinement was customary to him.

Slowly, as ease of movement returned to his body, Toki gave himself permission to explore the house. It was old – much older than what Toki assumed a single man Skwisgaar's age would own – and larger too. A formal living and dining room that were never touched but to dust, four bedrooms, two of which were occupied by research materials from one degree and the fruitless pursuit of another. It was all very perplexing. Toki always figured houses matched the people that lived in them. His own home was haunting and decrepit.

The books that cluttered his quarters needed tidying. His experience with the library beyond the rare books collection was limited; alphabetizing by the first letter he saw, rather than author's name or subject or anything remotely useful, was unconventional, but organized all the same.

Under the stacks of withering paper, Toki was shocked and delighted to find an ancient upright piano. It was woefully out of tune, in horrible shape and in need of serious attention. The perfect project to occupy 12 hours of daily loneliness.

When he did have company, it was fleeting at best. Skwisgaar rose with the sun and returned after it set. His kitchen wasn't for cooking. Coffee, perhaps. So Toki started there. Located the French Press and the tiny electric grinder and single-origin Indonesian roast and dialed in his timing to leave just enough time to share a cup.

Despite all efforts to resist familiarity, Skwisgaar started noticing things. Which meant he came to expect things. Like the heaps of milk and sugar Toki loaded into his coffee every morning. It's the way Toki took it, so in spite of himself, it's the way he began to take it too.

The first time he awoke to acrid smoke filtering into his bedroom, Skwisgaar was certain the congregation had tracked him down, set fire to his house in a savage act of biblical vengeance. But all he found upon rushing downstairs was a timid little Norwegian burning eggs and toast for breakfast. He stopped setting his alarm, because he came to expect it.

It was the worst feeling in the world. Guilt. Skwisgaar had saved his life. This he knew. He had avenged his pain and the wrongs done to him. (This Toki did not know.) But still, Skwisgaar could not accept that karma had aligned. Every time he changed the bandages, rubbed salve into the wounds. Every time Toki thanked him in that meek tone, full of shame and embarrassment, Skwisgaar felt the pangs of responsibility, ownership over that sweet kid's suffering.

It was the worst feeling in the world.

 

Toki started noticing things, too. Things that were not meant for him, for anyone.

The hauntingly beautiful siren's song that always fell apart on the same bar. The sound of things breaking, like the dreams Skwisgaar once had.

The cabinet full of amber bottles and ointments and gels that distracted him, only for a moment, from the radiant waves that hung down the man's back, every inch of which shined brighter than the sun. The hair, more than the naked chest, the tattoos that covered acres of exposed flesh, felt private.

He only caught a glimpse of it, so much more than he was meant to see. Skwisgaar's eyes met his in the mirror as he closed the cabinet door. Utterly impassive. It was all Toki could do to slink away in silence.

Skwisgaar didn't stay for breakfast that morning.

 

* * *

 

"I tells you abouts my scars. Tells me abouts yours."

 

Skwisgaar had been avoiding the kid for days. The sutures were out – an ordeal unto itself that involved a puke bucket and several calls of encouragement from Abigail – and he was mostly fine. Fine enough to ignore out of spite for a little while.

Until he came home from work one day to find an entire smörgåsbord waiting for him on the coffee table.

"Where you gets dis?"

His first thought, even though he was mad at Toki, was his safety. It had been a month since the church burning and he'd gotten no indication that anyone was on their trail. And yet.

Toki looked at him, apologetically.

"I goes to market. Is just down de street."

The possessive embrace in which he enveloped Toki was completely unplanned and wholly intentional.

"I'ms ok Skwisgaar!"

"Be caresful." Stern, heartfelt words breathed into soft brown hair.

"J- ja." Toki extricated himself with a blush. Gestured for Skwisgaar to have a seat on the floor, his own floor, to enjoy the spread.

Wine helped to ease the awkwardness. Whether he felt particularly bold or especially courageous, Toki didn't know. He was curious.

"I tells you abouts my scars. Tells me abouts yours."

Skwisgaar looked at his own hands. Fingers arched delicately around the stem and bowl of the glass, ghostly pale contrasted against the blood red background of pinot noir. They were cold, now, but the joints were inflamed more often than not.

His own hands had betrayed him. He was supposed to be a rock star, a concert violinist, a classical pianist, anything but this. Now all he did was sit at his quiet post and read about the instruments he could no longer play. His friends found a replacement, of course. Some goat-looking bastard whose name he expunged from memory. Together they carried on the mantle of the band they'd dubbed Dethklok, played their shows around the country, even recorded a couple albums. But they never really made it. They were never what they could have been if he hadn't gotten sick.

He was never what he could have been if he hadn't gotten sick.

"So, you see."

Skwisgaar set his empty glass on the table. Shifted from hip to knee, dug those malfunctioning fingers under the hem of his sweater and pulled up. Toki's eyes widened to take in the magnitude of the art. Now that he could see it in detail it was grotesque, a massive capsized Viking vessel that spanned from shoulder to shoulder. The severed head of a dragon decorated the bow, but the only place it would ever lead the longship now was into the depths.

Toki felt bold and courageous, and curious besides. Trailing his own comparatively stubby fingers over the broken sail, the discarded oars, he could feel the heart beating thunderous beneath.

"I adds de flames when I gets my masters. Dat was it. Done."

Skwisgaar was quiet, now, but closer. Close enough for Toki to smell the wine and despair on his breath. The Swede stilled the wandering digits, folded them into his own.

"I don'ts get it."

A frown stilled the Swede's advance.

"You gots everyt'ing in the world. Haus. Work. You's safe. Why you so sad?"

Skwisgaar wasn't about to explain Maslow's theories to the boy. It was esoteric on a good day and a weak defense against a kid who had nothing but the shirt and the wounds on his back. So he said nothing. Instead simply withdrew his hand, stood hastily, and retreated.

 

The same hauntingly beautiful siren's song filtered through Toki's wall that night. When it inevitably faltered, a different set of strings answered back. Clear as a bell, meticulously restored and carefully tuned, the piano that Skwisgaar had abandoned along with those ambitions echoed his original melody, added harmony and depth and the musician's own aching melancholy. Toki paused in his play, listened for the boot or bottle that would always thud or shatter against the stone that separated them. But that night, the violin sounded again. Shaky, but resolute.

For an hour the call and response continued, until it melded into one voice. They followed no script, nothing was written. It was straight from two hearts, connected at last. Then it stopped. Toki feared he had asked too much, Skwisgaar had pushed too hard. One note hung on the air along with Toki's deep sigh.

But the next sound he heard was a deep Swedish baritone.

"I don'ts gots everyt'ing in de woirld. Nots yet."

None of the sounds the piano made now were remotely melodious. Keys smashed under the weight of two young men as lips pressed together. Scarred bodies, trembling hands, common desire.

 

* * *

 

His light touch grazed the still-raw skin that faced him, and with a wince he recalled the yelp of pain he had induced in a fit of passion.

 

 _It's okay_ , Toki said.

 _It's not_ , Skwisgaar said. _If anyone ever hurts you like this again, Toki, I will show him no mercy._

A confession, and a seduction.

They were careful. They had to be careful. Toki was in pain and Skwisgaar was in pain but they were both deep in something else, too, something that drove them into each other's lives and arms.

 

His light touch was enough to awaken his bedmate, who rolled to face him. Moonlight that still shone in the predawn hours glinted off the boyish smile he'd seen too rarely these days. It was enough to break his heart clean in two and sew it right back together again.

"Comes to work wif me."

"Ams Friday…?"

"I knows. Wants to shows you somet'in."

 

* * *

 

Sneaking around the library after hours was its own special thrill. Toki hadn't been in months, not since the day he'd invited the blond librarian to coffee. Nothing and everything had changed, and he felt as though the building now contained multitudes only he could fathom, all for him.

The Swede chuckled softly at the boy's wide-eyed wonder and followed his gaze up to the wooden rafters.

"Ams kinds of impreskives, ja. When yous t'inks abouts it."

He placed a gentle kiss on Toki's cheek and took his hand. "Follows me."

Toki knew the way, of course. Down the winding staircase, into the chilly stone depths of the building's archives. But he kept his eyes trained on the librarian's long flowing waves nonetheless. They led him, as ever, to the rare books collection, where, as ever, Skwisgaar disappeared into the stacks.

"You tells to me dat story about dis books and I t'inks… well… I t'inks you oughts to reads it, you know?"

He returned with the big, gorgeous, out-of-print tome in one gloved hand, the one with the picture of World War I fighter planes on the cover. And a spare pair of gloves in the other.

But Toki wasn't looking at him, at the thing that had cast and sealed their fate or the gift he held. His gaze was directed upwards again, through the mottled glass floors of the levels above and to the wooden rafters above them.

They weren't orange, before.

"Skwisgaar..."

"Ams against de rules but, ehugh, I makes de rules."

"Skwisgaar."

Again Skwisgaar followed his gaze, slightly more annoyed this time.

"Oh."

There were no warnings, no alarms. There was no reason to think the building would be occupied so early.

The flock knew when there was a wolf among them. They'd seen the tall blond sitting aloof in the back rows. He knew enough to playact the rites. But when their house burned down the list of suspects was short. They had only to find him.

Find the house of sin where he worshiped.

Get their revenge.

Skwisgaar tossed the gloves aside, the ones he was going to give Toki for his very own, and handed him the book.

"Guess it don'ts matter now, huh."

Smiled a watery smile at him. Sat down on the floor, creaky joints be damned. It didn't matter, now.

Toki accepted the book without fanfare, sat beside him, grateful for the warmth that still radiated off him despite the terrified shivers that wracked his entire frame. He turned to his favorite chapter, the one about how man overcame the limitations of technology to build planes that propelled him farther than ever before, then turned those planes into weapons of war. And he read aloud.

They didn't hear the mottled glass floors of the levels above groaning and cracking as they succumbed to the inferno. The only sounds that reached their ears were the sweet sound of Toki's voice as he described the twin-seat, rear-fire biplane, broken by a sob or a sniffle. Apologies whispered to each other in mother tongues. The soft _pap… pap… pap…_ of tears falling onto half-century-old paper.

 

Then more droplets.

 

No salt in these.

 

More plentiful than tears.

 

The roiling flame that had become their lone source of light seemed to flicker. They gazed up, again, two faces now awash in fresh water and the indescribable joy of reprieve.

 

* * *

 

Skwisgaar overslept. It was the third time that month. He wanted to complain, but who was he to object to edible toast and eggs.

On his plate that morning was not breakfast, however. He wanted to complain, but the little box with a bow on it piqued his interest. And Toki's fingers running through his hair, twisting it into his signature conservative bun, always had a way of stifling objections.

"What's ams dis?"

"Opens it ans see."

Skwisgaar complied, but was no less confused. Inside the box sat a tiny model plane, intricately crafted piece by piece from formless clay and meticulously hand painted.

"Toki. What's ams dis?"

Toki rounded to face him, that arresting smile plastered on his features. From the counter he grabbed a book, opened to a dog-eared page.

_"The Packard-Le Père LUSAC-11, designed by Frenchman Georges Lepère for the United States Army Air Service with the intention of bringing the stars and stripes into the military aviation age, was already obsolete by the time it landed in the arena. It never saw combat, but it did set world altitude records in 1920 and 1921. The LUSAC-11 was the first but certainly would not be the last fruitless military outlay by the United States air forces."_

The text was smudged, the paper warped. But Toki knew the words by heart. And though he would never admit it, so did Skwisgaar.  

"You been lettins me live here a year so, I figures… I gives to you dis. Sos I can t'anks you. For uh, you know. Bein so nice to me."

Skwisgaar stood, wrapped his friend and ward and housemate and lover in a fierce embrace.

"Dis ams you home, Toki. You don'ts owes me nothin."

Each leaned back, the better to eye the man who'd so radically changed his life.

"'Ceps I do remembers some'tin bouts a cups o' coffee."


	8. Something Rilly Wicked This Way Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles had warned them to be careful. Today was Halloween, ordinarily a perfectly spooky, brutal affair. What boded poorly for others was the best of luck for the dark lords of death metal. Usually.

“Cans stills play wif a broken foot. Coulds still plays wif a broken hand, to bes honest. Nots like it do’s dat much woirk.”

Toki was fuming through the haze of morphine. Skwisgaar sat at his side, providing comfort in the form of mindless string plinking and unhelpful commentary.

The worst part was, Toki couldn’t argue back. It was his fault, his own damn fault, that he was lying here in the emergency room, leg bound up in plaster and traction.

Charles had warned him to be careful. Had warned them all. Today was Halloween, ordinarily a perfectly spooky, brutal affair. But this year it fell on a blood moon with Mercury in retrograde, the same month as the Friday the 13ththat marked the six-hundred and sixty sixth anniversary of the time all those kids mysteriously disappeared in the woods near old Mordcamp only for their bodies to be found the following Ides of March. But they were Dethklok. What boded poorly for others was the best of luck for the dark lords of death metal.

Usually.

“Hey Skwisgaar, checks dis out!” he’d said.

_This will earn me a solo for sure_ , he’d thought.

How could he have seen the banana sticker on the floor? The one Pickles had retrieved from their stash especially for presentation to Toki upon successful completion of the Pickles The Drummer Stage Diving And Drop Kicking Showmanship Program?

Toki was lucky the slip and fall only yielded a broken pinkie toe and a severely bruised ego. It looked way more brutal. Twelve million Instaghrrhuhhm followers agreed.

Skwisgaar snickered, bedside.

“Looks at dat,  _vwooop_!” Twelve million and one.

He ducked out of the way before a drug-addled left hook could connect with any part of his body, and used the opportunity to excuse himself.

“Guess I goes hits dat ol’ dusty trail. Gots imporkance appoinsamens.” Skwisgaar stood, patted Toki affectionately on his cast, much to Toki’s chagrin. “Oh, almos’ forgots”

He reached into his back pocket, withdrew a bruised, smushed banana and chucked it at the invalid guitarist.

“Tries nots to slip on it!” And was out the door, a litany of swears at his back.

Charles intercepted Skwisgaar on his way out of the infirmary.

“Toki is doing well, I trust.”

A dismissive snort was his only response.

“Ah. Fine then. Skwisgaar your shipment of six giant industrial strength fans has arrived, but I should note once again that the Gibson photoshoot has been rescheduled to tomorrow to avoid any, ah, potential mishaps, on account of…”

“Ja, ja.” Skwisgaar waved his hand in the butler’s face. “Shows to me where des fans ams ats. Gots to prefecs my look.”

The Swede disappeared in a swoosh of gorgeous gold.

 

* * *

 

With Toki in the hospital, someone had to take over his Wish For Something Foundation duties. Charles wanted to reschedule. He really, really did. But these kids were dying. Asking their parents if Sad Sick Sam or Tragically Terminal Tammy could wait a little while seemed in poor taste, even for Charles. So he grit his teeth and wrung his hands and let it proceed.

Tragically Terminal Tammy flew in with her mom, Crunchy Granola Jane, all the way from Portland, Oregon to spend Halloween with Toki. They met giant teddybear man Nathan Explosion instead – even though Pickles was their second choice. Pickles was busy being drunk or high or both.

They were cool with it, though. People from Portland, Oregon were loosey goosey about stuff. Tragically Terminal Tammy was loosey goosey about dying. She was cool with it.

“Brutal,” Nathan told her. “That’s a brutal attitude.”

The little girl batted her baleful eyelashes with a resigned smile. Coughed. Nathan summoned every bit of latent strength not to recoil. But she was cute, and dying anyway, and Nathan had a soft spot for cute dying children – and there wasn’t anyone around to see him have a soft spot for cute dying children – so he hoisted poor Tammy onto his shoulders and showed her all the coolest Mordhaus haunts.

She nodded respectfully at the fountains of dead Klokateers’ blood. Smiled politely at the piles of dead Klokateers. Perked up considerably at the invasion of privacy into Toki’s room, full of all the whimsy and wonder and handmade weaponry she’d ever imagined. And was downright gleeful by the time the surgically reconstructed zombie chef brought her ghost-shaped chocolate chip pancakes for lunch.

“So, uh. I guess the poor little bastard’s not gonna get better, huh.” Nathan definitely knew how to empathize with a mother’s pain. At least he’d offered her tea, as they sat and watched Tragically Terminal Tammy load up her plate with whipped cream and sprinkles and everything her little failing heart desired, coughing and hacking and groaning all the way.

“Oh, no! Tammy’s not  _dying_  dying.” The mom cast a placid, manic smile in Nathan’s direction. “She’s going to be a human sacrifice to the dark lord Cthulhu. That’s just her getting over the mumps is all.”

Nathan balked at her.

“Uhh. Did you say, ‘mumps’?”

The idiot mom nodded. “Mmhmm. You see, we don’t believe in vaccinations. We wouldn’t want to poison our kids like that.”

Nathan stared at her, horrified not at her logic, but at her choices. And his parents’ choices…

“Uh ohhhh…”

But before he could have a right and proper panic attack, a cacophony of howls and growls and foreboding drumbeats rattled through the dining room and their very souls.

“RHAAAAAAAHHHH! Bow before your Dark Lord!”

The lights flickered. Tammy shrieked. Tammy’s mom clapped her hands and beamed. Nathan rolled his eyes. For before them stomped an incredibly high or incredibly stupid drummer with a nearly-dead octopus squirming on his head.

“Jeeeehst kidding!”

Pickles whipped the cephalopod unceremoniously from his skull and nodded to the Klokateer that trailed him to kill the noise. Tammy lit up when she recognized it was her second-favorite Dethklok member – not the Great Old One come to claim her youthful life energy – and bounded forward for a hug.

“Pickles what the f- what are you doing?”

“Figured you could prabably use a li'l buffer, yknow, on account of poor Tammy here has the mumps, and I know you ain’t never got 'em before.”

Nathan glared at him. Opened his mouth to curse his drummer’s secret knowledge and poor timing. Coughed.

 

* * *

 

“God, Schwishgaar, let schomeone elshe have a turn!”

Murderface sat on set, pouting. Cradling his guitar. His  _Gibson_  guitar. It was a bass, sure, whatever, but it was a  _ **guitar**  goddammit_. A Gibson guitar! He had every right to be part of this photoshoot, or practice photoshoot, or whatever was going on.

“Dood. What’re you gonna do with a wind machine?!”

Pickles jammed a drumstick into Murderface’s unmoving bush of dry, unkempt triangle hair. Pickles was only along for moral support. After Nathan had to be quarantined in the infirmary – the better to study such a peculiarly aggressive mumps virus – he found himself wanting for amusing diversions.

Annoying Skwisgaar by way of harassing Murderface was as amusing as it got. They were both so easy. Murderface slapped the drummer’s hand away from his head, but the drumstick stayed right where it was.

“C'mon Murderface, I can show ya how ta twist that bad boy into some kickass dreads if ya want?”

“What, scho I can look like a half-bald ginger elf? No thanksh.”

Pickles found that remark a little below the belt, if his uppercut to Murderface’s overly calcified jaw was any indication.

Skwisgaar willfully ignored the catfight rapidly escalating to his left. He needed to figure out his best angles (every angle) and sexiest poses (every pose) in advance of tomorrow’s shoot. Skwisgaar Skwigelf didn’t stick around all day.

He thrust his thumb upward, demanding more wind from the attendant Klokateer.

His hair flowed elegantly behind him.

He was as if a god.

The catfight became harder to ignore when it tumbled into his diva space. The catfight became a significant concern when it knocked a fan into a fan into a fan into Skwisgaar. The Klokateer certainly didn’t remember hitting the “reverse” switch. But there were a lot of switches! Maybe the fans just got turned around in the scuffle!

It was all Murderface could do to hack at the gorgeous gold with his trusty bowie knife until the Swede was free from danger, Pickles punching his gut all the while.

The photoshoot would have to be postponed.

 

* * *

 

Toki just could not stop laughing.

It was under Charles’s insistence that Skwisgaar take up a bed in the infirmary. He’d gotten awfully close to those fan blades – closer than close! Skwisgaar insisted – and was pretty shaken up, besides.

There was video, of course. Skwisgaar needed a record of his movements, for reference. Certainly not for vanity. How that video got leaked to BruTulbe was an absolute mystery. The only thing he could take solace in, at this moment, was that his misfortune had more views than Toki’s.

Still, every five minutes, Toki would look up from his phone to the man in the bed beside his. Fall into hysterics. Point. Beg for mercy. Return to his phone. Repeat.

Skwisgaar would have been more annoyed were it not for the cocktail of valium and more valium that presently calmed his jagged nerves.

“Yous ams asshole, Tokis.” Drugs did little to bite the tongue, however.

“Thatsch what you get for being a fucking schpotlight hog.” Murderface, in a bed on Skwisgaar’s other side, smirked at him through swollen eyes and a split lip.

Battle scars. Street cred.

Skwisgaar waved a couple of fingers in the bassist’s general direction before deciding upon the middle one.

Pickles the Drummer observed all of this with a grin, none the worse for wear, from his perch on a lounge chair near the door. Flipping idly through Drummers Weekly. Not a care in the world.

“Hey Pickles.”

“Dood, did someone say somethin’?”

“I SAID HEY PICKLES!” Nathan Explosion shouted through puffy cheeks from his plastic enclosure at the far end of the four-man trauma centre.

“Sound like meecrochips.”

“Yeah, onesh and zeroesh.”

“Too digitals.”

“Oh. Okay. I see. Fuck all of you, individually and as a whole.”

Pickles made a show of standing, stretching his whole 5'2" frame for all his bedridden bandmates to watch with envy.

“Well if you guys don’t mind, I gotta be on my way. Big Halloween party to host tonight. Too bad I gatta pick up the slack fer all'a you dopes.” He added the last with a conspiratorial wink, to a collective groan from the room.

“I forgots about de fuckins party! Alls dats candy!”

“All dems sexy halfs nakeds womens costumes!”

“The food!”

“[Indeterminable coughing]!”

Pickles grinned mischievously at them. Produced a green top hat from seemingly nowhere. “Don’t worry. I’ll save you some of those caramels with the cream inside.”

Another collective groan followed him out of the room, much to his delight.

 

* * *

 

Charles Offdensen cornered the gleeful little drummer just as his All Hallows’ Eve fun was about to hit its peak. As usual.

“WHAT.” By way of greeting, as he sent his gaggle of skanks away for the Serious Conversation Charles had clearly come here to have.

“One year, Pickles. Just one year without any tricks. That’s all I ask. And yet every year I get a hospital full of laid-up baby men.”  

“Dood. What’s the fun in bein’ a leprechaun if I can’t play a couple pranks every now and then? Those guys need a pot o’ gold like I need a fuckin’ alimony payment.”

Charles pinched his eyes, forked tongue letting out a bitter hiss of frustration.

“Green beer, Pickles! Green beer!”

Pickles’ eyes sparkled yellow as he chuckled at his manager’s reddening face. He acquiesced just as the two pointed nubs threatened to break through the flesh of his forehead. That always looked super painful.

“Okey, okey. I’ll undo it all in the morning, sheesh.” Pickles smirked. “’Cept for Murderface. That guy was overdue for a good ass kickin’.”

Charles’s irises narrowed to snakelike slits–

“Arright, fine! This don’t count as making a deal with the devil tho. I ain’t signing no more contracts with you, asshole.”

With a sigh of relief, Charles’s flesh regained its normal pallor and texture.

The pointed tail and pitchfork weren’t going anywhere, though. It was Halloween, after all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the Mtl Trick or Treat event that I totally forgot to upload here.


End file.
